Friday, December 14, 2007

As the Wolverine head coaching search continues, some U-M fans were aghast that, in their opinion, another "great" coach got away without Michigan so much as even having him on their list: Bobby Petrino.

But in the hysteria now swirling in some quarters surrounding the search, did any of those folks stop to consider if they really want a guy like this at Michigan?

"The Falcons watched him on television the previous night, yukking it up at a giddy, late-night news conference in Arkansas, then showed up at their lockers to find a 78-word letter from their ex-coach, whose tenure in the NFL lasted all of 13 games."

Seventy-eight words? Good God! Les Miles issues longer statements on a daily basis saying he's really, really, really not interested in Michigan. And if you doubt him, he'll tell you again tomorrow. But I digress as there's more to the Petrino story...

"Falcons owner Arthur Blank sounded as though he had just been stabbed in the back. He got a call late last week from Dallas owner Jerry Jones, an Arkansas alumnus, to say the school was interested in talking to Petrino about its coaching vacancy.

Blank said he told Jones the Falcons had no intention of letting the Razorbacks speak with their coach, and general manager Rich McKay confirmed that position in follow-up calls with Jones.

That was followed by a series of meetings over the weekend in which Petrino laid out some areas of concern, and the Falcons thought they had addressed them all. In fact, Blank said he met again with the coach on Monday, just hours before Atlanta's 34-14 loss to the New Orleans Saints, to make sure he wasn't planning to leave.

"He stood up, we shook hands and he said, 'You have a head coach,' " Blank said.

Twenty-four hours later, Petrino submitted his resignation, hopped on a plane to Arkansas and signed a deal as Razorbacks coach."

Now, some people make fun of Michigan's "old school" request that our football coach have something called integrity. They mock U-M's antiquated expectation of a coach with character. How quaint. It's 2007, just win, damnit!

But I don't want the Bobby Petrino's of the world roaming Michigan's sidelines. I want a guy who's not constantly checking his cellphone to see if his agent called with a better deal. I want a guy who's excited to coach in Ann Arbor, not simply excited because he was able to get a bigger paycheck.

Am I naive? Maybe. Arrogant? No. I simply believe there are still some ingredients in a coach that are just as important as knowing about X's and O's.

70 comments:

"But I don't want the Bobby Petrino's of the world roaming Michigan's sidelines. I want a guy who's not constantly checking his cellphone to see if his agent called with a better deal. I want a guy who's excited to coach in Ann Arbor, not simply excited because he was able to get a bigger paycheck."

I would rather have Urban Meyer. Some people just take his whining last year as sticking up for his players rather than whining.

That's why I don't want Les Miles. He has denied, denied, denied that he is going to Michigan, and if he ends up coming he will be the biggest liar of them all. Those southern coaches are all a bunch of dirty liars.

Well Yost, looks like Brady Hoke is your man then. I will guaran-damn-tee you his agent (if he has one...do you think he even needs one to negotiate his $156,000/year salary) will NEVER in 10 billion years find him a better job than Michigan.

Be happy with the fact you know he's not going anywhere when the bowl streak ends in a couple years and we're in the bottom half of the Big 10.

Yost,As I mentioned before, whether he was "the guy" or not, I don't understand why we never talked to him. Petrino was very successful @ Louisville. Lots of college coaches wash out in the NFL. How could we just write him off/ ignore him out of the box.

How come Martin is ruling out people on rumor/reputation, rather than meeting them & deciding for himself?

Every coach is leaving a team behind. The guys who have switched jobs already dumped 85 kids who have a bowl to play yet. My guess is the 55 Falcons Petrino left behind probably are dealing w/ this better than any of college players the other coaches left behind.

At some point, don't we have to actually meet some of these other guys to hire one?

If Yacht Boy had spoken w/ Petrino AND then decided "this guy's a snake", I wouldn't have a 2nd thought. If he spoke to Brian Kelly & concluded that he rubbed him the wrong way, I'd be comfortable w/ that too. But that's not what are we doing.

Bobby Petrino is a scumbag. He was an assistant coach at Auburn under Tubby before he went to Louisville - he owed CTT a lot for helping him land that job, and how does he re-pay him? By sneaking off at the end of the next season to meet with Auburn school officials to discuss him snaking Tubby's job. Well, Tubby is still at Auburn, the school president and A.D. who met with Petrino have both been fired, and Petrino is on his third team in five years. Look for Auburn to have a little bit bigger circle drawn on the calendar around the Arky game next year.

All the Hawg love fest now is great and fine, but Arky fans better not get too used to Petrino on their sidelines - about thirty seconds after UT gets rid of Fulmer, Petrino will be professing his love for the "Nothing Sucks Like The Big Orange" Nation. In my opinion, Petrino is about equal to Nick Saban in the "Lack of Integrity" category. I hope Arky sucks next year and for as long as that traitorous asswipe is on the sidelines.

I would have to agree with Aubie's comments. I don't blame Petrino for leaving Atlanta- Vick killed that team and it won't recover any time soon. But, Petrino should have been a gentleman about it and talked with his team and admin first. But that's his track record- back room deals, no loyalties, move on to whatever the hot offer is at the time. The more I think about it, the more I believe he belongs in the same class as Saban, Art Modell, and Rachel Phelps.

Funny as hell - My word verification is Luhza! That also fits for Petrino- Loooza!

If Les signed a contract to stay at LSU, told his players he's staying at LSU, and announced it to the world several times over that he is staying at LSU only to come to Michigan after the BCS championship game how is he any different from Petrino?

Also, since everyone acknowledges that Les is a "Michigan Man" what does this say about the word, honor, integrity of Michigan men?

Or does it simply not matter since Les picked us (as we blush like a quiet nerdy school girl whose just landed a date with the school's best football player)?

If Michigan has honor and integrity then Les is off limits. Go and find someone else, but not Hoke.

How come Martin is ruling out people on rumor/reputation, rather than meeting them & deciding for himself?

That is how Martin rolls. Steve Sarkisian is rumored to be a candidate but he has California working against him.

Martin would rather go with someone who knows the Midwest rather than someone who can recruit one of the big three high school football states.

Martin would rather go with someone who will send the tailback into the line three times in a row instead someone who wants to throw on first down. And gawd forbid Sarkisian is taken seriously, I mean with his QB coaching experience, it's not like U of M needs anyone to help mentor a certain stubborn QB who will be the starter in the fall.

Yeah, I took some heat for my Canham v. Martin post, and yes -- Martin did honor his word to the LSU AD, but my opinion of Martin isn't swayed by anything I've seen thus far.

While it's reassuring to know Michigan fans still have moral standards, at the end of the process, I hope everyone is half as pleased w/ the new coach we hire as everyone seems to be pleased w/ all the candidates we didn't hire.

A year form now, if Ark, UC, LSU, et al (all the coaches we really didn't want) are all 9-10 game + winners & we aren't? I'm not sure how much our morals will really comfort us while we watch others play in bcs bowls, or, gawd help us, we watch tosu play in the bcs game again. I can only spend so many more seasons chanting "but we have ethics" to myself before I'm going to just chuck it & just watch the pros.

SiC,i've been saying this for months now. I'm all for a coach who conveys integrity and character to his players with his actions (and not just his words).

But in the end, we root for football teams, and we all want our teams to do well on the field.

I think that finding a happy median is between a coach that will graduate a majority of his players, won't have any players that will get in trouble, but won't win and the coach that will win at all cost is very tough (and is also in a job description of most collegiate powerhouse AD's). It just doesn't sound like you guys have much faith in Martin to do the right thing.

You see, this is my big beef, exactly what you just said Wing "you don't have enough faith in Martin to do the right thing". Speculation and rumors. Do we REALLY know what is going on in the coach's search? I highly doubt that we do. The media and bloggers are tossing out these tidbits of information that are half truths and running with them like they are the whole truth. This frenzy is what is tarnishing Michigan's image. Can we all just have a little bit of faith? Please.

Martin would rather go with someone who will send the tailback into the line three times in a row instead someone who wants to throw on first down. And gawd forbid Sarkisian is taken seriously, I mean with his QB coaching experience, it's not like U of M needs anyone to help mentor a certain stubborn QB who will be the starter in the fall.

How can you possibly know this? At some point this search will end, and then we'll be able to draw some conclusions about who was selected and why.

No one is sitting around with a decision tree that precludes a candidate because he doesn't run the ball enough. You might be frustrated that we ran so much zone left during Jake Long's tenure, but it seems a bit extreme to project that frustration on Bill Martin.

Also, Martin clearly isn't limiting himself to someone who knows the Midwest if Greg Schiano received an offer.

As far as the ethics/integrity issue: I graduated from Michigan. I care about the team, have season tickets even though I live in New York, spend stupid amounts of money to fly to home games, bowl games, away games on the West Coast, and generally allow this team to affect my emotional well being more than any grown-assed adult ever should. I have actual nightmares when Michigan loses.

All of that said, as someone who cares about the university more than the football program, I'd rather see the program sink into Northwestern-style mediocrity than see the school have as its unofficial media figurehead someone who steers us into Steve Fisher territory, or alternatively makes me cringe every time I go to freep.com or flip on ESPN because I never know if he's said something ridiculous, petulant or spastic. Unfortunately the head football coach is the unofficial face for the school, which makes things like ethics and "fit" important to a place like Michigan -- which has more at risk across the board if its head coach looks like a buffoon -- than at a place like 'Bama or LSU, where you can be sketchy or dumb without anybody caring, since football is pretty all those schools have going for them in the first place. Bad on-field performance, as infuriating as it is, doesn't bleed into the school's image as a whole; a head coach with questionable ethics or the on-camera tact of a Saban (the loss to La.-Monroe was really like 9/11?) or John L. Smith might. Other schools can take such risks and rationalize them as the price of succeeding. Michigan can't.

Schiano - not comingDeBord - WOW!English - I'm still a little wary, but he seems to be the best candidate here that would actually listen.

Now granted, maybe Sailboat Bill will pull a rabbit out of ass, er, hat, but I don't see anyone out there with any legitimate legs. Which leaves us with Hoke, DeBord, and English. To me, DeBord will stay on at OC, English on at DC, and Hoke taking over. Puppetmaster Lloyd getting exactly what he wants in the end - continuity at the expense of legitimacy.

it's a crazy society that we live in, if the head coach of a football team (the team that's almost in no way representative of the general student population of the university), is considered (albeit "unofficially") the face of the university, that is repsonsible for producing scholars and performing research.

I'll agree with you on one thing: since sports are so much more important in today's society than education, the media did make these coaches in "unofficial faces" of the university. Makes me want to puke.

Well, I had started to compose another angst ridden comment deriding the Skipper, but then the yorkie puppy told me that xmas is coming & upsetting katie would land me on the "naughty" list. So, this is my holiday/cute dawg inspired thoughts on the matter!

It doesn't matter who we don't hire & how look getting there. All that matters is that who we hire wins 10 or more games next year w/out creating any scandals, right? At that point, who'll remember any of this?

So, if they hire Brady? So what! If he beats ND, wins the conference, & goes to the rose bowl, he was the right choice afterall. And whoever we hire, if they don't do that (or roughly similar), they'll be a disappointment no matter how acclaimed their hiring.

In the end, we shan't know until next year whether this was a good or bad choice.

The puppy now says it's time for my xanax and another cookie for him. Happy Thursday everyone!

I think Sailboat Willie did okay with the Beilein hire, but has seemed to be in over his head on this one.

He knew for months this was coming down, but appears pretty unprepared to me. He has bungled the Les Miles situation horribly, unless someone made him bungle it. To say "I'm not going to speak to him until after the game" when their AD comes right out and says it's okay to contact his people is pretty bad. But, THEN, a week later you go and interview Schiano without permission.

I will be the first to tip my hat to the man if he gets a good coach, but while he's leading the circle-jerk going on right now, there are fewer and fewer candidates out there. And the fewer good candidates there are, the closer we get to DeBord, English (I think I might be okay with this), or Hoke.

wingrg -- I agree that it's crazy. I'd like to think that I overstated. It's all incredibly dumb. But then you walk through how you think about these people and their schools: Krzyzewski as Duke: smart, preppy, arrogant; Woody as OSU: belligerent, extreme, passionate; Weis, Spurrier, Alvarez, Carroll, Stoops, H. Fry, they all kind of align with my perception of those places as institutions, not just teams. Maybe "unofficial figurehead" isn't right, but "trademark personality" is? I sort of think the Michigan administration must feel the same way, which is why "don't embarrass us in public" appears to be a threshold criteria.

What follows is pure guesswork on my part, but for all the carping about Carr, I bet the real person shaping this search is David Brandon -- Domino's CEO, former Michigan regent, player under Bo, major donor and fundraiser for the school. He's like a one-man bridge between every constituency that matters: administration, boosters, the program, and development. Reports in the press put him in the anti-Miles camp. He might be better positioned than anyone to put the pieces together. He's the guy I'd study and/or blame, depending on your predisposition.

Chuck, I understand. My point is that what we are actually hearing is not the full story (and we are not ever likely to hear that either). We can't change the fact that Martin is the AD and is the one that is going to hire the next coach. Having a little faith that he can pull it off is more attractive to me, then the implosion that is currently occurring. I have never been a fan of Martin and I am not likely to become one now, I just am not pleased with how Michigan is looking in this situation and part of that is from the implosion of the fan base against our own leadership.

My speculation is that English will be named interim for one season, then we are likely to see Mr. Damn good football team head to Ann Arbor (and that will not please me). However, if this happens, Joshua promised to complete an amazing feat, so I could live with it. :o)

"As far as the ethics/integrity issue: I graduated from Michigan. I care about the team, have season tickets even though I live in New York, spend stupid amounts of money to fly to home games, bowl games, away games on the West Coast, and generally allow this team to affect my emotional well being more than any grown-assed adult ever should. I have actual nightmares when Michigan loses."

Crimenotes, you summed up my life pretty much, although I have gone to way fewer games. Some people don't understand the emotion invested in CFB. I know, we're pathetic. And that scene of Corey Lynch blocking the FG kept replaying in my dreams a few nights after The Catastrophe, or al-Nakba, as Palestinian Michigan fans call it. Why else do you think they are always so pissed off? It's not Israel they're protesting; they're calling for Lloyd Carr's head.

(The liberalism of Ann Arbor has clearly not rubbed off on me. I am still an insensitive asshole.)

I think I am probably the most nieve Michigan fan alive but I believe we will find a coach. And I do believe that we all need to listen to Yost's words on here with the coaching blogs.

One thing that bothers me is that we all thought like the next day after Carr retired we would have a new coach. Things do take time.

Also, it's not like Michigan wont have a coach at all. I know that it would be a disappointment to have an interim head coach. But hey look back to 1995 after Gary Moeller resigned. Lloyd Carr was named interim and later was the head coach. We obviously fared pretty well under him. Let's say Ron English would be named interim if we don't find a head coach. Who is to say he won't do good?

Well, if the reports I've read have been taking the quotes from Martin out of context, I say that because it's what MARTIN FREAKING SAID!

For Pete's sake, are you a member of the Martin family and every time someone says something even remotely unfavorable about Martin you feel duty bound to respond????

Listen, I did elaborate about the play calling... sue me... it's a freaking blog; not my term paper.

But as far as Martin's process goes, he has in my opinion, severely hamstrung the list of serious candidates by his seemingly arbitrary requirements and the description of his "process".

For example why is it extremely preferable for the coach have to have Midwest connections? Are not the talent rich areas for recruits in Cali, Texas, and Florida? Charlie Wei's connections are doing wonders for him at ND right now!

By way of comparison, Pete Carroll is plucking blue chippers out of the Midwest to go to SoCal. I don't know, call me uneducated and emotional, but I think it would be pretty darn cool if Michigan could compete with Texas, USC, and the SEC. Right now, Michigan cannot even keep some of the serious in-state talent. And yes, before you mention it, the Maize and Blue nation rejoiced when we heard we got Mallet away from Texas but I think the jury may be out on that one.

At any rate, back to the coaching search, other then embellishing my frustration with the play calling, there was anything hardly emotional about my post... and I stand by the main point, it would be silly to not seriously look at someone just because they are out in SoCal.

Look at the reactions when BSU's or Iowa's coaches are mentioned. Whether or not one likes Miles or Martin, there is universal panic at the mention of those other names. And rightfully so. The last thing the football team needs now is more of the same ol same ol.

I don't understand the Schiano thing at all. He's made it perfectly clear he's holding out for State Penn and has already turned down others. I think people (namely Drew Sahrp) are putting too much into that coaching turning down U of M.

For Pete's sake, are you a member of the Martin family and every time someone says something even remotely unfavorable about Martin you feel duty bound to respond????

My friends and I have complained about Martin for years, most viciously when his eulogy for Bo morphed into a cynical pitch for why people should support luxury boxes. There are a lot of reasons I don't like him, but they're immaterial here, the way that most of the criticisms lobbed against him have been about immaterial issues. He's a smart sonofabitch and has historically gotten everything that he's wanted. People think he's bungled things, and I think that's fine. I just think he should be criticized for reasons that, you know, make sense and have a basis in fact. Also that it's premature to issue these sweeping denunciations when we really 1.) have little idea of what's going on, or 2.) don't know the end result.

The Midwest-connection emphasis clearly was contradicted by the Schiano situation. Maybe it's fair to criticize him for being a hypocrite, but obviously facts outran that criteria.

Man, I'm really, really, REALLY pulling for the evil genius angle. I find it hard to believe that the people we've heard about are the only one's we've talked to, but having such an emotional stake in this makes it tough. Crimenotes was right- the emotional stake that I have in this program is simply mind-boggling and as a logical being it's impossible to justify, but it is what it is. I hope the man knows what he's doing, but the replay of that minnesota game from 3 years ago keeps flashing through my head. There's no logical way in hell way we SHOULD should mess this up, but that doesn't mean we won't.

And completely off-topic: Has anyone seen the trailer for "Jumper". The movie itself looks sweet, but I swear I just saw a Block M logo in the background in a short clip. Then again, maybe it's just the xanax and scotch talking.

Good eye Joshua, I had to watch the trailer twice to catch it. That is pretty cool.

I leave for a bit and upon my return I go check out MGoBlog......holy cow, the comment section is.......well......freaky to say the least! Maybe because it is final's week, the students are releasing some pent up energy? Typically the comment section there is strictly football and it had a stern feeling to it, like if you said anything aside from football they would hunt you down and drag you bloody to the curb. My how things have changed since the implosion of the Michigan fan base!

I used to really like MGoBlog ... thank God I've found this spot lately. Thank you all for giving me reason to believe there are intelligent, passionate Michigan fans out there. I was getting seriously creeped out about the future of our football program - not because of the coaching search itself, but because of how those yokels were carrying on. I try to tell myself that most of them must not have attended the university.

And Crimnotes, on coaches and ethics within the broader context of the university's public image: well said.

Ah, everyone thinks that we have fallen simply because they have no info.

Ferguson, this search is kinda like me scamming on your girlfriend and you think I'm single, and you pity me because you think I go home alone every night, but you're cheap and boring , while I treat her like a queen and I do that thing with my tongue. Not to say you in particular, because I don't know you, but you get the point. And if not, let me make it more clear: I'm really going to be laughing when the rest of the nation finds out we weren't fumbling this.

Ryan Fergie - That is all that is known, because that is all that they want us to know. I am with Joshua on this one, I don't think we are fumbling it, and I can not wait for it to be over so that people will see that.

Joshua, just exactly what is it that you do with your.......nevermind. :P

Katie, I had a good teacher in my early 20's- (On a side note, every guy should date an older woman when they're young, and all the women they date after should shower her with gifts as thanks later on)- but that toungue thing actually comes from a t-shirt which reads:

"Your sister's hot, but your mom does that thing with her tongue."

Not my style, but absolutely hilarious.

Whets- ur awesome dude. We need some fuckin' levity around here to keep that comment from becoming true.

I think there is a small but super-vocal group who, at this point, will be disappointed and furious if it's anyone lower-profile than Urban Meyer. If hypothetically Keeler in Delaware gets the nod, they'll be grousing that he's not prestigious enough, that we're humiliated, confirmation that Michigan is second-tier, weak, worthless, and that the road to redemption begins with mass firings.

If his first year is 7-5 or 8-4, they'll rally to get him fired. Might be true for Tedford or Grobe as well. If he does what the consensus says and shakes up our offense, but, as should be anticipated, does not yield instant dividends, he'll be denounced as a failure out of the gate.

The 85 percent of the fanbase whose favorite cheer is "down in front!" will barely care. They won't notice that there's a new head coach. If they do, they'll get confused and assume that he's either DeBord or Wayne Fontes. Their loudest complaints will still be a sarcastic, "Good going, Lloyd," muttered in a half-shout, half-whisper, while shivering under a blanket.

The insane three percent, constituted of online Robespierres wanting to behead everybody in sight, will fill the void. The coach who doesn't immediately satisfy the fantasies of every jackass with a PS2 will catch flak before his feet hit the ground. A few will be out of the picture when tears saturate their keyboards, resulting in electrocution. As the only people who really understand football, they'll manage to soldier on, denouncing any future national title as a "fluke" and an unfortunate obstacle to a firing the new coach and hiring Les Miles.

So nice to have friends in high places :o) Thanks guys!!! However, in full disclosure I must tell you that I started it because I called him Ryan Fergie ;o) It wasn't meant to be a knock, just an abbreviation, obviously one he took offense to. Puff is a pussy cat at heart ;o) (one I wouldn't want to piss off though!)

Whets, I agree, I would be shocked to see RichRod come to A2, not because it isn't a good move for him, but that 4 million dollar buyout is fairly limiting. (Seeing that I don't see Martin offering to pay it)

You're right, Katie. They locked 'ol Richie boy up pretty good last year when Mal Moore from Alabama came a callin'. WVU made a LOT of promises at the time to upgrade facilities, give fat pay raises to assistants, etc., if he would agree to stay in Morgantown.

I have a feeling Captain Steubbing won't screw this one up, and alumns will donate to make up that $4 mill in a heartbeat. If it leaked it might as well be as good as done, and if it falls through they'll pull out the checkbook and offer $4 mill a year to Les, Tedford or Feivel. It's the only way he could save himself at that point.

I think that the fact it was leaked is slightly telling as well. At least we can hope. However, $4 Million is a lot and didn't Martin make the BB coach pay his own buy out? I don't know about you, but I don't happen to have $4million sitting around. If I did, I doubt I would be sitting her writing a paper on spirituality in health care. HA!

No worries Ryan/Shelley, we are a little protective of each other around here, particularly with the media having so much fun with our coach's search, we are a little sore around the edges. It is all good :o)

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